Shaping a New Democracy in Popular Culture
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MEME SHAPING A NEW DEMOCRACY IN POPULAR CULTURE A Dissertation by Nadine Nella Gan GAN17527272 BA (Hons) Creative Direction for Fashion 19/20 CHS Dissertation | Matthew Crowley I, Nadine, certify that this is an original piece of work. I have acknowledged all sources and citations. No section of this essay has been plagiarised. 1 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................... 03 METHODOLOGY .......................................................................................... 05 PART 1: MEMES IN POPULAR CULTURE CHAPTER 1: THE ORIGINS OF MEMES ......................... 07 CHAPTER 2: INTERNET MEMES ........................................... 09 2.1 PARTICIPATION ............................................................................. 13 2.2 RESISTANCE .................................................................................. 13 CHAPTER 3: REPRESENTATION ........................................... 15 CHAPTER 4: POPULAR CULTURE ....................................... 18 PART 2: CASE STUDY GAME OF THRONES’ #DEMTHRONES ........................... 22 5.1 INTRODUCTION TO GAME OF THRONES ..................................... 22 5.2 BLACK TWITTER ............................................................................ 23 5.3 #DEMTHRONES ........................................................................... 24 5.4 #DEMTHRONES MEMES ........................................................... 26 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................... 32 BIBLIOGRAPHY .............................................................................................. 35 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS .............................................................................. 38 2 INTRODUCTION In today’s world of globalisation and connectivity, it has become easier for citizens of the world to communicate, connect and share information with one another, regardless of distance. Technological advancement has granted mankind this privilege and it has disrupted many industries as a result. Popular culture is not an exception. There are 7.7 billion people in the world and of that, 3.5 billion have access to the internet (Roser et al, 2019). This means the majority of the population has the ability to broadcast their individual opinions online, namely through social networks. As a result, internet citizens find each other who share the same voice and eventually form a community online that “[shapes] narratives across great distances, leaping geopolitical boundaries to drive conversations in other countries’ media” (Mina, 2019, p. 76). The internet has challenged the total control industries had over the contents that are being shown and said to the public. These communities now are harder for powerful figures to ignore, they have become a body of influence with a unified discourse powerful enough to trigger cultural shifts. These ‘voices’ are often shared in various formats; audio, visual, text or a combination of all three, and internet memes is one the main transmitters, mainly among today’s younger generation; Gen Zs and Millennials. Internet memes are user-generated bite-sized nuggets that come in the format of images, texts or videos that often carry a humorous and satirical tone of voice. They propagate from one person to another via the internet, mainly on social media. “The remarkable growth 3 of social media has amplified the public’s appetite for popular culture products.” (Burns 2009, p. 1). Relatable in nature due to its satirical element, memes have great potential to be shared and eventually go viral, making them an unlikely powerful medium of online communication capable of shaping a new democracy in popular culture, where there is a rise of co-creativity from the no- longer passive audience. In this essay, I will introduce the origins of memes according to Richard Dawkins, a biologist who coined the term ‘memes’. Then, I will further explain how the term ‘memes’ has become a powerful communication tool for internet users by referencing various academic texts focusing on internet memes, the internet and social media. This essay will then highlight the importance of the role of memes in today’s popular culture, which I will discuss, in reference of Stuart Hall’s Popular Arts theoretical text. I will be focusing on the television series Game of Thrones and the memes created based on the show that were publicized and shared by the black community #DemThrones on Twitter. Through this case study, I will adopt a more focused perspective to illustrate the discursive power internet memes hold through intertextuality, or in other words, through the relationship they maintain with other relevant works of content on the internet or current events. 4 METHODOLOGY Due to internet memes being a visual medium, I will study the discursive manner of internet memes mainly by conducting visual analysis. In contemporary society memes can be “[dismissed] as low culture, but their very accessibility is a transformative change from media consumption to media creation and public sharing.” (Mina 2019, p. 25). Although internet memes may be far from the traditional material for research, this essay aims to show that they are a worth the discussion. Lucy Rose (2016, p. 2) supports the importance of visual analysis further by starting that “All the different sorts of technologies and images offer views of the world. These images are never transparent windows onto the world. They interpret the world; they display it in very particular ways.” It is also important to highlight the gap between the speed of production of academic literature and the rapid evolution of the digital culture. New waves of trends occur almost on a daily basis, especially on social media which includes Black Twitter, a community that came together in 2010. Thus, it is important to address the lack of of academic sources that discuss relevant theories to the topic of this essay. Numerous recent online articles have also been used as reference and source of research as they provide a more updated review on today’s internet society. Discourses are articulated through all sorts of visual and verbal images and texts, specialized or not, and also through the practices that those languages permit. The diversity of forms through which a discourse can be articulated means that intertextuality is important to understanding discourse Rose (2016, p. 142) 5 PART 1 MEMES IN POPULAR CULTURE 6 CHAPTER 1 THE ORIGINS OF MEMES To understand the power of the discourse of memes, it is important to briefly study the origin, history and evolution of the medium. ‘Memes’ is a term coined in a book titled The Selfish Gene written by Dawkins. He was originally investigating why humans behave in a selfish manner by prioritizing the pursuit of their own interests, and secondly, whether the biology in human genes plays a part in this attitude. Hence, the title of the book (2016). Through his research, he also studied how culture is being transmitted horizontally and vertically in society; How lowbrow and highbrow culture spreads throughout the masses. As Dawkins looked further into the human genes, he learned that they have to be preserved as accurately as possible through generations. Humanity survives through constant mutation of the same genes. However, culture behaves in the opposite manner. Dawkins (2016, p. 245) stated that “Cultural transmission is analogous to genetic transmission in that, although basically conservative, it can give rise to a form of evolution.” Change is vital for the survival of culture and Dawkins had identified that ‘memes’ are a type of gene that mutates based on imitation and develops further along the way by absorbing new attitudes, forms and ideas. There are fundamental traits of a meme that would be preserved but as it travels through, it adjusts itself to the new environment. Dawkins then explained that memes are applicable beyond genetics and can be applied to any medium including music, fashion, ideas or catchphrases (2016). In their early days, memes 7 functioned as a parasite to these mediums. They serve as by-products and imitations of the original version. Though today’s memes have evolved beyond that, as regular genes have, they have seamlessly integrated to the digital ecosystem, becoming a regular element of online conversations spanning a wide range of topics. 8 CHAPTER 2 INTERNET MEMES Internet memes are simplified commentaries of the world made by netizens – or internet citizens. They “shape and reflect general mindsets” (Shifman, 2014, p. 4).At first sight, they might seem comparable to a simple, harmless joke that may not carry a deeper meaning. As Shifman (2014, p. 18) writes, “Although [memes] spread on a micro basis, their impact is on the macro level.” One reason why this is true is because there is never a final product when it comes to internet memes. As memes are distributed through the Internet, they have been proven to go through an endless cycle of replication and alteration with a twist of the next user’s agenda, creating an imitation of the original form. The artistic quality in internet memes play a very small role in its success, more often than not its success is proportional to the quantity of its spreading on the internet instead. “Through satire and repetition, social media users are able to shape and define a narrative, and through intentional overproduction [of memes], they start arriving at narratives that have